With Love, from Cold World, page 29
He hadn’t expressly invited her to join them, and even though Lauren knew she was probably welcome, she hated the idea of being the needy, friendless person who hitched onto someone else’s plans. Maybe it would be better if she disinvited herself before the topic even came up.
“I’m actually going out of town,” she said finally, grabbing a stirrer for her coffee to avoid having to make eye contact with either Sonia or Asa.
“You are?” Asa’s voice was pitched a little higher than mere interest, sounding closer to surprise, and Lauren glanced at Sonia to see if she’d noticed. The woman had set aside her romance novel, her focus completely on the conversation, and Lauren wished she could tell her she needn’t bother. The sooner she was out of this situation, the better.
“Where to?” Sonia asked.
Lauren had never been a good liar. And she didn’t particularly want to lie, so the idea of seeing this through to making up a location and a fake itinerary seemed exhausting. “I don’t know yet,” she admitted. This time she couldn’t help but look over at Asa, whose gray eyes slid over her face, then down to where she was frantically stirring her black coffee, then away.
“Oh, to be young and single and free,” Sonia said with a sigh. “My in-laws have been staying with us for the past week, so I get the impulse to split town, for sure. What about you, Asa?”
“Not sure yet,” he said. “My plans keep shifting.”
This time she willed him to look at her, but he was staring down into his coffee mug like it held some kind of answer, so she muttered her excuses and headed back to her office. She wasn’t really surprised when Asa followed her, shutting the door behind him.
“People are going to think—”
“So let them,” Asa said. “What was that back there? Was that for Sonia’s benefit, or are you really planning to spend Christmas out of town?”
She shrugged, the movement stiff and unconvincing. “I might,” she said. “It’s a long weekend. Why not?”
She’d meant the question to sound casual, carefree, like December 25 was any other day and it shouldn’t matter one way or another what she did. But it came out all wrong, more like What other reason could I possibly have to stay, and she only realized how hurtful that implication was when she heard the words echoing in the silence that followed.
Lauren took a deep breath. “I only meant that I’m not really a Christmas person. You know that.”
She sat down at her desk, rummaging through a stack of papers until she pulled out the blue folder of yesterday’s Z reports. The numbers swam in front of her eyes, but she tried to look like she was studying them carefully, running her pencil down the margin. Jesus, sometimes pretending to work took more energy than actually working.
She heard the click of the lock before Asa knelt on the carpet in front of her, spinning her chair until he was between her knees.
“Lauren,” he said, grabbing the armrests so she couldn’t move the chair. “Is this the beach all over again?”
“What?” She wasn’t being purposely dense—it was legitimately difficult for her to follow the shift this conversation had taken when he was so close, when she could feel his body heat against her inner thighs.
He smiled, an almost private expression of amusement, like he was thinking back to some inside joke. “You told me you couldn’t come out because you had to clean your closet.”
“Which I did—”
“And then you drove all the way out there because Kiki wanted taco backup.” He ran his hands up her calves, his palms rasping slightly against the silky layer of her tights.
“Tacos are important.”
“Except you didn’t even stay,” he said, his hands flirting now with the hem of her skirt. She had two equally strong urges—one to clench her thighs together, the other to spread her knees farther apart—but instead she held herself so still she felt her muscles tremble with the effort.
“You’ve seen my closet,” she said, her voice coming out breathless. “You have to admit, it’s very neat.”
“You are a paragon of organization.” He pressed one thumb against the back of her knee, some pressure point she’d never been aware of before, but now she felt in her very core. “I was really disappointed that I didn’t get to see you in your green bikini.”
“How’d you even know it was a bikini?” She was only half-conscious of what she was saying, already slipping into the fuzzy edges she got when he touched her.
“I could see the lump under your tank top, where it was tied around your back.” He was still only touching her with that one thumb, but the pressure was so exquisite that she felt a tingling through her whole body, similar to when you’d sat on your limbs too long and felt them static back to full use. “And also the place where you’d tied it around your neck. I could draw you a diagram of that knot.”
“Asa . . .” she said, pushing against his shoulders, but the effort was halfhearted and they both knew it. “You have to get to work.”
“I’m early. Don’t need to clock in for another hour at least.”
“I have to get to work.”
He grinned, squeezing her knees before rising to lean against her desk. “You’re incorruptible, which I respect. Although for the record, I would still respect you if you let yourself be corrupted.”
Lauren would’ve never considered herself the type of person to have sex at work. Fooling around with Asa that night they’d been locked in had pushed every boundary, but at least then she had the plausible deniability of it being after hours. But she was surprised at how strongly she wanted to, how tempted she was, how disappointed that he didn’t push it further even though she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Especially when she was the one preaching secrecy and discretion.
Which, a closed door to her office probably wouldn’t help with. It occurred to her that she still didn’t know how they’d gotten to talking about the beach in the first place. “What did you mean, Is this the beach all over again?”
He blinked, as if rewinding the conversation in his head. “You wanted to hang out,” he said. “But you were scared. That’s why you almost didn’t come, and why you left early.”
Scared of what? she almost asked, defensiveness a knee-jerk reaction. But she knew he was right, and it would be pointless to pretend otherwise. She’d spent so long feeling practically invisible that it still shocked her sometimes, moments like this that made her realize how well he’d seen her all along.
He hooked his foot in her desk chair, pulling her closer to him. “We would love to have you over for Christmas,” he said, looking suddenly serious. “If that’s what this is about. And I’m not just speaking for myself—John specifically asked if you were coming. If you’d truly rather spend it alone at a Holiday Inn, hey, that’s your call. Just promise me that you won’t make that kind of decision out of some notion that we don’t want you there or you don’t deserve to be there or whatever other outrageously wrong idea you might have. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“So what’s my exit strategy here?” he asked, nodding toward the door. “Do you want to go first and make sure the coast is clear, or—”
Her hands fisted in his T-shirt as she pulled him down for one more kiss, nearly toppling them both over in the process. “I hate being wrong.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, laughing as he regained his balance and exaggeratedly fixed his T-shirt as though she’d ravished him in the office after all. He cracked the door open, glancing out in the hallway before giving her one last grin. “I, on the other hand, am loving every second of it. Just come over Christmas Eve and be wrong at our house.”
Only after he’d left did she realize the cheesy pun he’d made with the Holiday Inn reference. At various points throughout the rest of the day she found herself randomly thinking about it, which would explain why she kept catching herself smiling for no apparent reason. It was as good an explanation as any.
* * *
• • •
Lauren spent the early half of Christmas Eve hanging out with Eddie, his caseworker, and his mom, Ms. Ramirez. It was awkward at first, given that Lauren didn’t quite know her role—she didn’t want to interfere too much with Eddie’s opportunity to connect with his mom, but she also didn’t want to just be some weird person lurking on the edges.
She’d ended up buying Eddie a set of graphic novels that Asa had suggested, and the present was the perfect icebreaker because it gave them all something to talk about. She genuinely liked Ms. Ramirez and was relieved that the missed visit last time had seemed like a true logistical struggle and not a sign that she didn’t want to connect with her kid. Lauren was very conscious of her own history, knew that she couldn’t see her work with Eddie as some way to go back in time and fix what had happened with her own mom. But still, it gave her a lot of hope to see their clear bond, to hear from the caseworker how well Ms. Ramirez was doing with the case plan.
Asa had told her that he always worked a crisis line shift on Christmas Eve, because it tended to be a busy night, but she was welcome to come over whenever. She’d worried about showing up too early and having hours to kill hanging out with his housemates, but that turned out not to be a problem at all. For one thing, it took her way longer than she expected just to pack. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent the night at someone else’s place, not counting the impromptu night at Cold World where there’d been no opportunity to plan beforehand. Was it weird if she brought pajamas? Was it weird if she didn’t?
But even those dilemmas aside, it was no hardship to hang out with Kiki and John. Elliot had already left to see their family in Jacksonville, but they’d left gifts for everyone under the tree, and Lauren was touched to see her name on one. It made her feel self-conscious about the succulent she’d brought as a gift for the whole house, but John made a show of finding it a perfect spot near the front window.
“So you’re still not telling anyone at work,” Kiki said, her mouth full of iced cookie as she surveyed the fridge for something to drink. “How long are you planning to keep that up for?”
Lauren sipped on her own sparkling apple juice. Apparently John had bought it because he didn’t drink, but it sounded good to Lauren, so she’d accepted a glass herself. It fizzed on her tongue and made her feel mildly celebratory, a small taste of the promise of the holiday season that had always eluded her.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” she said. “It just seems easier if people don’t know. There will be lots of questions, and teasing, and people will talk if we’re standing too close or not standing close enough . . . And especially with the presentations coming up, I don’t want to give Dolores any reason to think we’ve been less than professional.”
“Uh-huh.” Kiki didn’t sound particularly convinced. “There’s no rule against it. You’re not his direct manager or anything. Is this about Daniel?”
Surprisingly, Lauren hadn’t even thought about Daniel since the holiday party. She’d had no chance to interact with him since then, which she was grateful for, since she had no idea how you came back from someone comparing your breasts to snowy hills. She didn’t know that she wanted to.
“No,” she said honestly. “It has nothing to do with him.”
Kiki slammed the fridge door shut, apparently dissatisfied with the choices. “We have nothing good here,” she said. “I’m going to the gas station to get some red Gatorade or some boxed wine. Text me if you want me to grab anything else while I’m there.”
Lauren was still staring at the doorway where Kiki had left when John strolled through the kitchen. “Those are her two pinnacles of quality,” he said. “Gatorade and boxed wine. God knows why.”
“Is she mad at me or something?” Lauren asked. “Or is it weird, me being with Asa?”
John ran a hand through his black curls, wrinkling his nose. “She and Marj broke up,” he said. “So she’s a little cranky in general. It’s probably not personal.”
“Oh.” Lauren knew Kiki hadn’t been thrilled when Marj bailed on the Cold World party after Kiki had gone to Marj’s stuffy law firm party. Still, breakups sucked—especially around this time of year. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”
He gave her an assessing look, as if weighing whether to say anything else. She assumed it would be more about Kiki’s breakup, but when he spoke, it was about Asa. “We’re all a little protective of him,” he said. “Of each other, really. And especially with her own breakup being so raw . . . Kiki wants to make sure Asa’s not going to get hurt.”
Lauren understood what John meant, about how that wasn’t meant to be personal against her. Asa and his housemates looked out for one another, which was one reason she liked hanging around them so much. At the same time, it felt strange to think of Kiki being worried about how Lauren might treat Asa, when she’d been the one to warn Lauren away from Asa in the first place.
“She told me Asa was fickle,” Lauren blurted. The comment had stayed with her, wriggled somewhere in the back of her head.
John raised his eyebrows. “Fickle. That . . . is not a word I would use.”
“So then what word would you use?” Normally, she would’ve been embarrassed by the idea of grilling one of Asa’s housemates so hard about him, but right now she had no pride. She wanted information, and she didn’t care if John thought she was being needlessly nosy.
And if there was one thing she’d learned about John from their limited time together, it was that he was always thoughtful. If he was going to give her an answer, he was going to consider it carefully first.
“I would’ve said . . . searching.” He tilted his head, giving her a small smile. “But when Asa knows what he wants, he commits to it. Look at how long he’s been at Cold World—what is it, ten years?”
“True.” Sometimes Lauren wondered if that was a good thing, though. Obviously, she was glad for her sake that he’d been there that long—if he’d worked a year, two tops, like most other people would’ve done in their first minimum-wage job, she never would’ve met him.
But for his sake, she wondered if it had held him back, stopped him from pursuing other dreams.
She could’ve mined John for more intel all night, but at that moment Asa’s door opened, and he stepped out, his face lighting up when he saw her. “Hey,” he said, pulling her against him with one arm, pressing a kiss against her hair. “Merry Christmas Eve. I can see you’re already celebrating.”
Lauren handed him her flute of sparkling cider for him to try. It had become something of a running joke between them, how many times he’d ended up sharing her drink before they’d gotten together. It had always given her a little thrill, and it still did. Something about the casual intimacy of it.
“Mmm,” he said now, taking his sip. “Hitting the hard stuff.” He set the glass on the counter, pulling Lauren toward his room. “Come on, I want to give you your present. I can’t wait any longer.”
She’d come prepared with a present of her own and was trying not to feel insecure about it. The minute Asa shut the door behind them, she pulled the small wrapped package out of her Cold World tote bag, pushing it across the bed toward him.
“Open this first,” she said. “It’s not much. A step above a fart maker, maybe, but. Not much.”
He grinned at her, and she could see how touched he was that she’d gotten him anything at all. She really hoped she’d set his expectations appropriately by referencing the fart maker, but she still felt like she needed to apologize for the Secret Santa debacle.
“I’m not good at presents,” she said, knowing she was rambling but somehow still wanting to delay the moment when he opened the gift. “You said once that I don’t like to do things I’m not good at, and—”
“Lauren,” he said, cutting her off. “No matter what it is, I know I’ll love it. Although you did wrap this like you own stock in Scotch tape.”
Okay, she’d gone a little crazy with the tape. She’d tried to use the three pieces he’d recommended in his tutorial, but they’d ended up being very long pieces. Wrapped around the entire present, mummy-style.
He finally ripped the paper off to reveal a handheld random number generator device that she’d found online. It looked like a small plastic calculator and had inputs for the bottom and top numbers in your range and then a button to push to generate the random number onto a small screen. The shipping had cost more than the product itself, which didn’t give her a lot of faith in its potential longevity, but she hoped he liked it nonetheless.
“In case you ever want to try my method of to-do lists,” she said. “Or replay our game, not that I remember what all the numbers stood for.”
Asa reached around her to pull open his desk drawer, sliding a few papers aside until he came out with a folded, yellow lined sheet, the top edge torn from a mini legal pad.
“Number one,” he read, “ask me anything. Number two, my favorite blank is. Number three, I dare you to . . .”
She grabbed the paper from him to read the rest. “You kept this?”
“Of course,” he said, rummaging through the drawer to pull out another sheet of paper. This one had a word bubble on it that said I’m getting a strong “A” vibe . . . Asa? Ass? It took Lauren a minute to register her own handwriting, to remember that she’d left this message on the fridge the first time she’d ever visited the house.
“Oh my god,” she said, groaning. “I can’t believe I wrote that.”
“I did get you to call that Rick Astley hotline that one April Fool’s,” he said. “So I can’t blame you for thinking I was an ass.”
It had been the April after she’d started at Cold World, and although she’d heard rumors of a few pranks in the past, she figured that she’d be immune from them as a newish member of the office staff. So she’d been totally unsuspecting when Asa came into her office with a Post-it note with a number written on it, saying that Rick “something” had called with a billing question, and could she call him back? She’d thought it was odd that he would’ve fielded the phone call, and had been annoyed when he stood in her office while she picked up the phone, assuming he somehow didn’t trust her to do it.
